witcherfandomcom-20200223-history
Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials
"Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials" is the fourth episode of series and is based on the short story "A Question of Price". Characters *Geralt of Rivia *Jaskier *Ciri *Mousesack *Crach an Craite *Eist Tuirseach *Calanthe *Pavetta *Peregrine *Draig Bon-Dhu *Yennefer *Kalis *Urcheon of Erlenwald *Fringilla Vigo *Cahir *Dara *Eithné Summary Against his better judgment, Geralt accompanies Jaskier to a royal ball. Ciri wanders into an enchanted forest. Yennefer tries to protect her charges. Geralt's timeline After slaying a selkiemore from the inside, Geralt arrives back at a tavern coated in gore to retrieve his bounty. Jaskier offers to take him to a betrothal party in Cintra in exchange for protecting him while he also attends the party, having angered several lords. He has Geralt wear high quality garb so as to blend in with the crowd, but Mousesack immediately recognizes him and calls him out. Mousesack and Geralt leave together, discussing Queen Calanthe and Eist's relationship, but Geralt quickly has to return to save Jaskier from a noble accusing Jaskier of cuckolding him. Geralt smoothly claims Jaskier to be a eunuch, and the lord leaves. Meanwhile, Calanthe insists that her daughter Princess Pavetta marry a suitor at the party. Eventually an argument breaks out between two nobles about what a manticore looks like, and although Geralt claims them both to be wrong, he allows that they might've encountered "rare subspecies" in order to avoid a fight. When they bring up Jaskier's story of Geralt slaying elves, Geralt honestly reveals that he was captured by them, which impresses Calanthe as the only person there talking about his defeats rather than his successes. Calanthe then brings Geralt to her table, asking him to kill certain suitors if a fight breaks out, which he refuses. The next suitor to vie for Pavetta's hand is Lord Peregrine of Nilfgaard, before it became powerful and while it was still under the rule of the Usurper. Despite constant interruptions from Draig Bon-Dhu, Peregrine manages to propose a marriage to "unite the jewels of the north and south", forging an "unbreakable alliance that none would dare cross". However, he goes overboard and disgusts Pavetta when mentioning his "potent seed", prompting Calanthe to dismiss Nilfgaard as the "shit rag of the south". She then questions his uneasy position as Nilfgaard's heir, and he storms off in rage as Lord Steergart of Kaedwen is called forth. At the table, Calanthe asks Geralt why there are so few witchers left, to which he explains that they cannot create any more after Kaer Morhen was sacked. Suddenly, Lord Urcheon of Erlenwald forces his way into the room and demands Pavetta's hand in marriage. Calanthe demands he remove his helmet and show his face, and when he refuses, Eist knocks it off. ]] Everyone is stunned to see that Urcheon looks more like a hedgehog than a human, and Calanthe immediately orders Geralt to "kill it". Geralt refuses, saying Urcheon is in fact a cursed man, so she orders her soldiers to slay him instead. Although Urcheon claims to own Pavetta under the Law of Surprise for saving King Roegner, Calanthe's first husband and Pavetta's father, the soldiers swam him anyway. He initially holds them off single handedly. Eventually one soldier manages to disarm Urcheon, but just as he prepares to kill him, Geralt intervenes and saves Urcheon. The pair then fight off the all of the soldiers together even as the suitors come forward to join the fray. Eist and several others hold the suitors off until eventually Calanthe herself grabs a sword and enters the absolute pandemonium, demanding that everyone stop. Pavetta then rushes in to reach "Duny", Urcheon's common name, and berates him for not staying away. Urcheon disarms himself and confesses to Calanthe that he was cursed and suffered endlessly until he saved Calanthe's former husband, King Roegner, from death. Calanthe claims that she'd rather he had died, revealing that she knew of Urcheon and ordered his death anyway. Eist reasons with her however, and Urcheon claims he never intended to claim the Law of Surprise at all, until one night after the curse broke he unintentionally met her, and they fell in love. 's scream]] Eist and Mousesack both urge Calanthe to honor destiny, so she appeals to Geralt. Although he agrees with her that there is no "destiny", he insists that a promise made must be honored, true for a commoner and for a queen. With pressure on all sides Calanthe seems to relent, pulling Urcheon close and whispering "here is your destiny" before pulling out a knife to stab him. Just before she can however, Pavetta screams in denial and a magical pulse blasts through the room, knocking everyone except Urcheon away. From the pulse begins a magical vortex of wind that keeps everyone to the edges of the room and lifts Pavetta and Urcheon into the air, Pavetta instinctively chanting in Elder Speech all the while. As the vortex accelerates and begins to threaten the integrity of the castle itself, Geralt struggles forward through the wind, failing to use signs to penetrate the vortex. After being pushed back, he drinks a potion and gains the fortitude to begin forcing his way forward, even as Mousesack slows the vortex with his magic. Geralt manages to get just close enough for Pavetta to notice him, at which point his sign cuts through the inner edges of the vortex and knocks her to the floor. The vortex ceases instantly and everyone rises up from the rubble. Calanthe then relents in the face of destiny and honors the Law of Surprise, with Eist announcing that anyone who takes issue with Urcheon marrying Pavetta would face "the sea hounds of Skellige", as he himself is marrying Queen Calanthe. Calanthe then blesses their marriage, and when Urcheon and Pavetta kiss, Urcheon miraculously turns into his human form; the curse has been lifted. Geralt then goes to leave, but Urcheon insists on repaying him for saving his life, insisting that he give Geralt something even when he claims to want nothing. At Urcheon's insistence, Geralt also claims the Law of Surprise and then tries to leave again, but Calanthe cries out in rejection at his action. He tries to calm Calanthe, having no intention of even returning to Cintra, but at that very moment Pavetta throws up; she is pregnant, and her child belongs to Geralt. Geralt finally leaves while everyone stares at him in shock. Mousesack follows him, announcing his plans to stay and guide Pavetta, and invites Geralt to stay as well. Geralt doesn't want to, and although Mousesack insists that not taking his child surprise would unleash "true calamity upon us all", Geralt says he'll "take that chance", dooming Cintra. Yennefer's timeline After 30 years of putting out political fires, Yennefer is now stuck escorting Queen Kalis across the countryside. Worse, an assassin soon arrives to kill Kalis for birthing nothing but daughters, slaughtering almost their entire company of guards and horses with his Krallach. Yennefer teleports herself, Kalis, and their last guard them away, but the assassin follows to their exact locations each time, killing the guard mid-chase. Yennefer eventually realizes they are being tracked and attempts to destroy Kalis' jewelry, but Kalis only finds the tracking device after teleporting for a third time. Angry, Kalis blames Yennefer's incompetence for failing to predict the attack, so Yennefer abandons Kalis to die. Left alone on a random mountainside, Kalis pleads with the assassin that she can produce a male heir, and when he doesn't move, she offers her own daughter as a "sacrifice" to him. Again he ignores her, and telekinetically launches a dagger to slice open her throat, killing her. His insectoid then prepares to kill her daughter, but Yennefer returns through another portal and kills it, wielding power against the assassin directly. When she realizes she cannot defeat him, she creates a portal and takes the baby through it, although not before the assassin lodges another knife in her back. Arriving in a surf, she stumbles to shore only to find that the baby has suffocated during the fighting. She tries to heal it, but fails. Dejected, Yennefer sits on the beach and says to the dead babe that it's better that she never grow old enough to realize how horrible life is for women. Yennefer then buries the child. Ciri's timeline Ciri continues to be drawn into Brokilon forest, and by the time she shrugs off the compulsion she finds herself surrounded by hostile dryads. Eventually Eithné speaks to her, asking her name, and Ciri goes under the alias Fiona. Ciri then goes with the dryads, and Eithné explains that there were once many such forests like Brokilon before the Conjunction of the Spheres, before humans and beasts arrived to destroy them. They eventually find Dara, who is being painfully tended to by a dryad. Eithné then insists that they drink the waters of Brokilon, which supposedly kills those who have ill-intent toward Brokilon and makes those who are pure begin to forget the past. While they wait to drink, Dara gets Ciri to admit that she's the princess of Cintra, which angers Dara as Calanthe had ordered the slaughtering of his family. That night Ciri has a dream of her mother's scream of denial from Geralt's timeline. She watches a battle ensue, and finds her own hands covered in blood before Cahir kills her. She then wakes up to find that Dara has already drunk the waters of Brokilon, and although she drinks it herself, nothing happens. Eithné then takes her to Shan-Kayan. In Cintra, the Nilfgaardians have found Calanthe's corpse. One of Fringilla's servants eats a square of her flesh, and then Fringilla eviscerates him. Reading his entrails, she discovers that Ciri is in Brokilon Forest, and reports this to Cahir. Mousesack is then dragged along with Cahir, who knows that armies are not the way into Brokilon forest. 's dream]] At the heart of Brokilon, Eithné cuts the bark of Shan-Kayan, causing sap to flow from it. She instructs Ciri to drink it, and when she does, she finds herself in the middle of a desert. At its center, she sees a massive tree, which asks her, "what are you, child?" Notes * The selkiemore monster mentioned in the episode is specific to the show; there's no mention of such a creature anywhere else in the Witcher lore. Gallery File:Geralt in Cintra.png|"Your Majesty, that's Geralt of Rivia" File:Law of Surprise.png|Calanthe, Urcheon, and Pavetta's reactions de:Bankette, Bastarde und Begräbnisse es:De banquetes, bastardos y entierros pl:O bankietach, bękartach i pochówkach ru:О банкетах, бастардах и захоронениях Category:Netflix The Witcher episodes